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BBC Trust Will Hear iPlayer Openness Complaints
AnotherDaveB writes with a Register story reporting that the BBC Trust has asked to meet with open source advocates to discuss their complaints over the corporation's Windows-only on-demand broadband TV service, iPlayer. The development came less than 48 hours after a meeting between the Open Source Consortium and regulators at Ofcom on Tuesday. Officials agreed to press the Trust, the BBC's governing body, to meet the OSC. The consortium received an invitation on Wednesday afternoon.
My girlfriend is constantly making these and I've noticed that the best way to adress them is to accuse her of using windows.
As long as they want to use DRM, what options do they have? Should they just not make thier material available until there is a player for everyone? It seems like that is kind of screwing everybody who uses IE and wants to see the material now.
This revolution will not be televised on my Linux computers. But maybe the effects will be.
Please feel free to sign the petition on the Government website.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/bbcmicrosoft/
Always good to raise the profile of this...
This has less to do with shafting Mac and Linux users and more to do with DRM. BBC is extremely paranoid about its content falling into the hands of consumers outside their control. Look at the website for Torchwood, you can't even view it if your outside the UK. It's not right but it fits with their approach on access to their content. Never mind that people can capture video on their PC's with a 30 dollar tuner card or record shows on dvr's. I wouldnt be surprised if more time and money went into the drm than the actually streaming process itself. Sure they loose a small but decent percentage of their viewers, but at least David wont be able to view Dr Who from the US and Billy wont be able to keep a copy.
A forced meeting is going to produce no results. All it shows is the BBC unwillingness to solve the issues.
The only reason they're meeting is so that if this does go to the court they can claim they "tried to resolve the issues".
...that the BBC download system won't work on Macs given that every BBC technical bod I know (and I know quite a few through my sister and her husband who both work in post-production there) is a complete Mac obsessive.
"advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement of Western industrial civilization."
Don't kid yourself, it does.
Western industrial civilization created soe of the best things ever created by man. It has allowed us to build building that touch the sky, send a machine outside out solar system, and put men on the moon and got them home. More people have clean water, access to food, and medical care then ever in the history of mankind.
Greatest. Society. Ever.
Greatest != perfect
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I seem to remember that sun was working on an opensource DRM based on Java called Dream
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
What ever happened to BBC research and development division? It seems the BBC do not innovate/invent in any way these days. BBC should come up with some sort of system that is open to all, and has some sort of DRM, not use a Microsoft product that is close to everyone apart from Windows XP users who use Internet Explorer.
It's not just he ~10% of none Windows users they are leaving out, but the other 20-25% that use alternative web browsers.
It's not paranoia, it's commercial sensitivity.
The BBC does not work in isolation. It works in partnership with other broadcasters around the world. And in making its content freely available to licence payers in the UK it has to make sure that it doesn't abuse the rights of its partners by giving away content to those outside the UK, where the rights may be shared with or even wholely owned by those partners.
Take two productions as examples.
The newest Doctor Who stories are co-developments with CBC, a Canadian broadcaster. I imagine that the BBC owns the broadcast rights in the UK, the CBC owns the broadcast rights in Canada and the broadcast rights elsewhere have been split or sold under an agreed formula.
To make Doctor Who freely available to everybody everywhere would be to the detriment of not only the CBC but to those third parties who buy the broadcast rights everywhere else.
Similarly, with Band of Brothers, which was a co-production with HBO, the BBC probably owns the UK rights, HBO the US ones and the rights elsewhere split, etc.
To expect the BBC to release all its content to everyone would be unrealistic, not least of all because securing the worldwide internet rights for all of the productions concerned would be impossible, strategically as well as commercially.
Faced with that reality, what choice does the BBC have if its going to make this content avaiable online in Britain and Britain only other than some from of rights management?
I'm all for the BBC coming up with a cross-platform solution but I don't think it's fair to hit it with the unfair charge of using DRM for DRM's sake when it's bending over backwards to make more content available to their customers (licence payers), on it's own initiative, without stepping on anybody else's toes in the process.
They're trying to be good guys here. Why blast them with both barrels over pipe dreams?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
someone will crack the DRM and the content will be put up on torrents etc...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The logical consequence would be to require a license fee for every computer, then that way they could afford to support all the users...
Downloading programs in a way is a value added service that works beyond the TV. People complain already that they don't watch the BBC but they still have to pay the fee. Now, the fee is going to pay for even more stuff they don't use.
I think it is reasonable to go with the most cost effective solution that works for the vast majority of people to begin with. They can worry about expanding it later on when they see what the demand really is and get all the kinks worked out.
For those not aware of how British politics works: Blair (and now Brown's) government both follow what is known as the 'tabloid agenda', the most read tabloid in the world is 'The Sun' this is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Heads of the Labour government regularly meet with Rupert Murdoch, in fact Murdoch was known as the hidden member of Tony Blair's government. Don't think Brown is any better though: an interview (sadly I think that's been taken off-air so you'll have to trust me) with the editor of The Sun revealed that Rupert Murdoch often used to joke about having to visit both Number 10 and Number 11 whenever he was in the UK.
As the BBC is competition to Murdoch he would like to see it shutdown. This is natural. Unfortunately for him the BBC is not controlled by the government, but the BBC Trust is. So when the government comes out with weird statements like:
It's pretty obvious to me who's behind the complaints. The people--whom the government are supposed to serve--just want the BBC to be the best it can be, and if private media can't keep up? Then it shouldn't be in business! Particularly when considering how these words are touting 'public interest' then enforcing the use of DRM? Public interest my arse. In the words of Hugo Swire (shadow culture secetary):
So as usual, it's all big company interests. I somehow doubt that the BBC Trust will listen to the Open Source Consortium. Not that I think they shouldn't try, however it's unlikely they'll be able to remove their heads from Rupert Murdoch's arsehole long enough to listen. :)
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
That's why we have MP4, so you can strap DRM onto the content, and make it cross platform.
Microsoft may be the "flavour-of-the-week" as they break every anti-trust, competition and price fixing laws and offer these large corporations incentives elsewhere. Makes you wonder.
Here's an idea that could make them them money and make us happier:
Why don't they use a flash based video player like NBC, ABC, etc.
If they detect that you are from the UK they show you the videos WITHOUT ADs. If you are outside the UK they show you the videos WITH ADs based on your country of origin.
Everyone gets to watch their content and they makes more money though AD revenue. A win-win in my book.
Has this got anything to do with the BBC's two-billion-GBP computer outsourcing deal with Siemens? Way back in 1999 the BBC had its own Linux-savvy wizards who did a fantastic job on the BBC website and other tasks:
/
/ 205660/bbc-completes-2bn-outsourcing-deal-with-sie mens.htm
http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/1176/1
I'd like to thank them for making sure the BBC's watch/listen pages work on my GNU/Linux/Mozilla/Realplayer computer at home. Now, it's all gone to Siemens, apparently:
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2004/10/01
Anyone inside BBC or Siemens care to comment?
Except you are wrong. The licence permits you to receive ANY TV broadcast, from ANY source, in ANY format. That is what the law says you need the licence for and if you read the licence it is clearly explained. Its just that it all get paid to the BBC whether you want to watch Sky, ITV or something from overseas if you live near the coast.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
> Is there already an open standard for DRM? I don't know about that stuff.
DRM means closed. Open and closed are opposites. Standards are written to encourage interoperability, DRM is anti-interoperability. The CD is an example of standards working, the MiniDisc is an example of DRM working.
The ISO standard for audio and video is MPEG-4 (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, AppleTV, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, QuickTime) which does not specify any DRM, it's about audio and video. If you want DRM you add it separately but that makes your audio and video non-standard by definition. You are using the DRM to limit playback to just the players you bless. This is exactly opposite to an open format where the decoder's functionality is precisely documented so anyone can make their own.
The problem I have with this BBC deal is that it's right out of 1998, it's clear that nobody involved on the BBC side knows what time it is. They should be finding ways to get their content out over the Internet to iPods and similar, not worrying about who might get their precious streams. Windows Media already lost this battle years ago, it's surreal to see Microsoft conning somebody like this. The BBC is making a fool of themselves. Five years from now, nobody who worked on this deal for BBC will even mention it on their resume, it is truly embarrassing.
You don't bet against Apple, Sony, and Panasonic when it comes to consumer audio and video, let's be real.